I don't think I should cook every night

[LurkyLurkerMcLurkface]

I'm on maternity leave at the moment with 8 month DS. DH works full time and is out of the house 8am-6pm. Our evening routine is pretty set, he gets in and takes DS, I get food ready for DS. He'll then sit with DS while he eats. He then does books/bath and I do final feed and settle. I then come down and cook
Every. Fucking. Night
Last night I'd had enough and cooked for myself and left him to it. He's been sulking since.
AIBU to think this should be a shared job?

You don't have to do anything for another adult

Of course you don't, but it's not much of a partnership if you feel like that, is it? If everything is contractual? And - for what it is worth - I would absolutely say the same if the DH were on paternity leave and the OP went out 8-6.

Let's change the example a bit. I'm a SAHM. My own bugbear is that I never seem to have any cash. We live in the middle of nowhere and I'm just not organised enough to think to get a lot of the cashpoint, so rely on cashback here and there. I quite often phone DH and ask him to get me some cash during the day. He could say, some would say reasonably, "Look Natalia - I'm at work doing x,y,z and you should remember this, so go out and get some." I could and it would take me half an hour. But he will be walking past an ATM several times and it will take him 30 seconds. Same with cooking. If I am in all day, I will be available to receive a grocery delivery. I will be physically standing next to the oven at many points. It takes 60 seconds to put a chicken or whatever on a baking tray and bang it in. It will then be ready for a mutually convenient point later in the evening. If I wait for my DH to come home, get changed (I can wear whatever I want, of course), spend a bit of time with his children (I've been able to see them all day), decide what to eat and THEN start to cook it, it'll be stupid o'clock and we will both have got to the bottom of a bottle of wine and won't care about food anyway we'd all heartily wish we'd eaten two hours ago. I think it's a practical point, not a sexist one.

But if you called him every single day and asked him to get cash out, even if you were able to get it yourself at the supermarket. Can you not see how wearing that would be? The OP doesn't mind cooking, but it's the cooking every single night and the expectation that the OP will do all the cooking. Maybe she feels like sitting and playing on the computer once the kids are in bed sometimes.

Saw this and thought it hit a chord....

If OP has a "difficult" baby then I imagine she is only too happy to hand him over to DH to do bath and bed with while she gets some baby free peace (I considered cooking without a child hanging off me to be a luxury when DS was that age). And I don't think it's fair for DH to do DS's mealtime/bath/bed and then cook really.

If OP doesn't have a difficult baby, then she can manage to do meal prep during the day.

I'm sure the OP would be more than happy to take over bath time on the days her husband cooks.

Wow! I'm usually a bit of a thread ninja too!
I've lost track of who said what after DS was up for 4 bloody hours overnight
The upshot. He's not unreasonable, but I think we're at risk of turning into his parents. MIL does all domestic tasks and always has. FIL does the garden etc.
So he'll cook 1 night a week, and some of the weekend (which I was doing all of, and getting more and more annoyed. )
Very much yes to the pp who said she found maternity leave infantilising. It really is!
Organisationally. Maybe. I'll have a look at what I could change. I go to one, sometimes two baby classes a day, so I lose that time but find staying in the house drives me crazy.

Make sure you make him stick to it OP and seriously return to work. Good luck!

That's great news OP!! Glad you sorted things out.

Wow, looking after your own baby is now "infantilising". God help the millions of SAHMs in the world then.

It's how the OP feels about her situation. She's not making a judgement on all women!

Glad to hear you've made progress Lurky!

Apologies for not rtft im a sp now but what worked back then when on mat leave was he'd come in, take over with baby. Id go pour myself a glass of wine & cook dinner it was a total relief tbh!

4 hours overnight?

Sounds like DD. You are never I for any reason.

That should have been U as in unreasonable. That's the iPhone!

Why don't you take it in turns and cook when the other one is with DS ie so the food is ready once DS has been put to bed.

Just do easy food, ie fish or chicken breast in oven, new potatoes and veg on stove (or salad) practically no prep and is healthy. I always set the timer when I cook so that I can get on with other stuff and am reminded to turn things off etc at certain times.

Your life could potentially be like this for a long time so you're going to have to figure it out! It's one of my massive bugbears too and it's only recently I've managed to convey to my Dh exactly how much it fucked me off. We have now got one night which is his cooking night (we usually have takeaway) and I am encouraging him to cook at the weekend a bit. It wasnt that easy to persuade him as he was totally out of the habit but we started on stuff he could do easily (Saturday mornjng boiled eggs, bean on toast) and moved from there. I will eat with the children if I've made a big thing for us all and I'm hungry. Then he can reheat if he likes.
I always point out that if i suddenly died he should probably have retained basic skills like cooking for his own self respect 😂

Arg sorry not quite managing to RTFT again 😆😆

Not read the whole thread, but . . . It depends on the division of other jobs. My DH cooks every night (he finds it preferable to other jobs like washing and shopping, both of which I do). So it kind of all depends on what arrangements work for you overall and what other stuff he does.

Agree with others who have said that it might be easier if all 3 of you ate together.

Haven't RTFT but I came on to say what mellowfartfulness said. When you have a difficult baby (and you can tell the posters on this thread who haven't) you get what you can done during the day - sometimes that might be nothing - and you split the remaining tasks when the other partner gets home. I don't buy the rationale that some things are just automatically anyone's job - and yes, going out to baby groups is important for your MH so don't scrap those in favour of housework.

As long as you're both getting equal relaxing time (as far as that's possible with a baby) then split the jobs any way that works for both of you. Sounds like taking turns with all the tasks could be a fairer way forward.

slow cooker. throw in stuff in the morning leave it cooking all day.

If he is not picky about what you give him then shove casseroles in front of him everyday you can throw that in the slow cooker.

Why is either a slow cooker or a sling the answer to everything on MN?

I haven't got space for a slow cooker and my baby hates the sling.

Why can't he use the slow cooker?

If your DH does other things around the home then YABU but if he does bugger all then YANBU.

My DH cooks every evening and I do all the housework, washing & ironing - suits me as I HATE cooking and I'm sure he isn't keen on cleaning. We both work full time.

Having said that when I was a SAHM (with exh) I did all the cooking & cleaning as he worked long hours/odd shifts and I was home all day. Casseroles aren't time consuming to make and slow cookers are a life saver.

Why is either a slow cooker or a sling the answer to everything on MN?

A slow cooker is no bigger than a large saucepan

Do people all have shares in a slow cooker manufacturing company or something?